A brave and tangled love (Meripunzel)

Chapter 36

Elsa sat alone on the moss-laced canal wall, in her palm was an open locket. She traced the edges with her finger, inside was an old miniature portrait of her parents.
"What are you doing out here?" A voice came, abruptly, from behind her. The necklace slipped through her fingers as she jumped, startled.
"No!" She yelled, still from shock. In her peripheral she saw a blur, Jack caught the necklace with his cane before it reached the deep canal water.
"That was close!" He tittered, pulling the ribbon off the end of the staff's hook. Elsa snatched it from his grasp before he could return it to her.
Jack stared at her, a confused look on his face. Elsa lied back against a nearby cobblestone bridge and sighed.
Jack slid down the wall of the bridge and laid his staff in the dew-dampened grass. "I didn't mean to scare you. I kind of hover, so, I forget people can't hear me when I come up behind them."
"Well I'm, sorry I snatched from you." She brushed her bangs back behind her ears. "It's just, uhm, this locket was given to me by my mother before she, uh." The look of exasperation on her face melted into a tired and woeful expression. "Before she died."
"Oh," Jack buried his face in his hands and sighed, "I'm sorry. I didn't know." He looked up and noticed a tear welling up in Elsa's eye. "I, I know what it's like to lose someone you love." He wiped the trail of water from her cheek. "And I know I wouldn't want to lose something that reminded me of her." He glanced at the charmed, curved wood by his feet as he spoke.
Elsa wiped her nose with her handkerchief, "I didn't even get to know them."
"Your parents? But like, didn't they raise you?"
"When I was a kid Ana and I were playing, and she uh, she jumped too fast and when I tried to catch her I accidentally hit her with my ice. We got her help, but my father freaked out and told me I couldn't use my magic anymore." Elsa closed the locket, "'Conceal, Don't feel.'" She recited.
"'Don't feel'?" Jack furrowed his brow.
"Yeah, I figured my magic couldn't hurt anyone if I didn't let my emotions get out of hand, and my emotions couldn't get out of control if I just suppressed them. So for the rest of my life I just bottled up my emotions and stayed away from Ana."
"And, by extension, your parents; cause you didn't want to hurt them either."
"Basically." She leaned her head back, her eyes drifting to the stars.
"So, you don't know anything about them?"
"Only snippets from childhood, like how my mother hated my fathers mustache." Elsa grinned, "she said it was like kissing a caterpillar."
Jack mimicked Elsa's grin, "Flee loved caterpillars. I used to try to stick them in her hair when she wasn't looking but she always caught on and would run away, she was too fast to catch up to."
"Who's Flee?" She turned her gaze toward Jack.
The corners of his smile downturned, "She's my, um, she was my sister."
"Did you lose her?" Elsa twisted the ribbon of her necklace around her fingers anxiously.
"Yeah. Well, to be accurate, she lost me. We were playing on the ice and it started to split, I pulled her out of the way with-" he held up his staff before finishing his sentence, "-but I landed on the crack and fell through. I'm not really sure if I drowned, or froze, but when I opened my eyes again I was Jack Frost."
"What do you mean? Who were you before?"
"Just some kid, really."
"But how did you get your magic?"
"The moon? I guess. All he ever really told me was that I was Jack Frost."
"I'm sorry Jack."
Jack chuckled, "We've said sorry so much you'd think it was the only words we know." He stood up, his voice was brittle as he blinked away tears. "I think it's time to hit the hay, I'll see you later."
"Okay." Elsa's words cracked as Jack turned the corner. She tied the locket around her neck and sprawled out in a soft clover patch to finish stargazing before she needed to return to the castle.